The Nation : Prison Populations Rise

Prison populations rose 4.7% in the first half of 1987, as a record 570,519 inmates jammed state and federal facilities, the Bureau of Justice Statistics said. Corrections officials had to add about 1,000 beds a week to keep up with the influx--a 7.8% increase in the West, 2.5% in the South, 4.6% in the Midwest and 5.1% in the Northeast, the bureau said. Criminologists attributed the increases to more stringent sentencing. In California, prison populations rose 5,253, to 64,737, and accounted for 21% of the U.S. increase so far this year.